Killing thistle in pasture

[Chucknbob]

So I've got about 1 1/2 acres of pasture with a few sheep (and occasionally my neighbors horse). Canadian thistle is starting to take over. I've thought about going over it with some broadleaf killer, but the only way I have to spray it is with a 2 gallon hand pump sprayer... I don't think I'll be going that route.

My question is, is there another way to kill it? Can I get granules that I could spread or another route?

[RichNC]

What I do it go out and cut it off at the ground level and then spray some weed killer on the stump...the rest goes into the burn pile and a nice hot fire so the seed won't spread.

[painterswife]

Years ago. I made my living spraying thistle. Spray before it flowers but after it has 4 to 8 leaves. It takes 2-3 years to get it close to eradication but less each year to spray.

[farmerDale]

DO you have to spray the whole 1.5 acres? Usually Canadas are in patches. I have done that much with a little sprayer before, works well. There are a few chemicals that work well, some work better than others, but you need to be aware of potential issues with each one. Clopyralid, at a good, high rate, will eradicate it for a LONG time, with one application. Some cheaper herbs like 2-4d and MCPA, kind of burn the tops off, and they will regrow. I use florasulam mixed with MCPA which really kinks them up, and gives the grass a chance to retake the area. Which is what you want: to re-establish the grass. A vigorous, well grazed pasture will have limited weeds, much like a healthy lawn.

You can hack them, you can mow them, you can do all kinds of other stuff, but they are perennial, you need to kill the roots, or they keep coming back. The truly only way to KILL the roots in a pasture scenario, is in my view, herbicide that works down to the roots. Again, clopyralid is the best bet in a pasture scenario. If you are talking a one time shot. Other herbs will need a yearly repeat until such time the grass overtakes, or the thistles run out of steam from regrowing and using up their massive underground rootstalk energy reserves.

[Bearfootfarm]

I attach the sprayer to the riding mower with bungee cords and ride around the pasture on the extremely rare occasions I spray.

Mostly I walk through with a wide, very sharp hoe with a 3 ft handle, and cut the weeds off just below the surface before they seed out

[TnAndy]

Originally Posted by Bearfootfarm

I

Mostly I walk through with a wide, very sharp hoe with a 3 ft handle, and cut the weeds off just below the surface before they seed out

I do the same, only with a shovel. If you don't let them get too much of a start, they aren't that bad to control. Also helps if your neighbor keeps their under control (which mine don't). Definitely want to get them before they bloom.

[highlands]

Our pigs _love_ thistle. And burdock. Where they graze there are none of either left. They eat the plants and dig up the roots. Highly effective and it makes great pork.

-Walter

[painterswife]

Originally Posted by highlands

Our pigs _love_ thistle. And burdock. Where they graze there are none of either left. They eat the plants and dig up the roots. Highly effective and it makes great pork.

-Walter

My horses love it but they won't eat it until it flowers. Too late.

[jwal10]

Keep mowing before they bloom, roots get weaker and weaker until most are gone but you have to keep at it, always vigilant....James

[MO_cows]

An acre and a half could be managed by digging them out. Before they go to seed. A sharp spade shovel and a wheelbarrow, or a trailer behind an ATV, a UTV with a bed, you get the picture. DH brings a little cooler along with a couple waters, couple beers, but that is optional.

[TxMex]

I used a pump up sprayer to spray vinegar on individual thistles on about 30 acres last year. They were really thick. This is in flood plane. The only areas I had thistles this year are the areas that were too wet to get to and spray last year.

[farmerDale]

Trouble with digging Canada thistle out, is they are very deep rooted and spread by lateral rhizomes, which are often a foot or more below the surface. Along those lateral roots, are many buds, waiting to pop up.

[MO_cows]

Originally Posted by farmerDale

Trouble with digging Canada thistle out, is they are very deep rooted and spread by lateral rhizomes, which are often a foot or more below the surface. Along those lateral roots, are many buds, waiting to pop up.

He gets them when they are young, and before the weather gets hot. He has cleared out some areas that way, maybe he caught them before the rhizomes developed?

But whatever you do, do it now because they can really make a dense stand and ruin patches of your pasture. There are some places along the railroad tracks around here where they have absolutely taken over.

[Moboiku]

With that small a pasture I would just walk through it and pull the thistles, preferably before they have a chance to re-seed. We have 10 acres and that is the approach we take vs. spraying poisons over all of it for us to inhale and the animals to ingest.

[farmerDale]

Originally Posted by Moboiku

With that small a pasture I would just walk through it and pull the thistles, preferably before they have a chance to re-seed. We have 10 acres and that is the approach we take vs. spraying poisons over all of it for us to inhale and the animals to ingest.

You can not pull a Canada thistle plant out, and get the roots out and be effective is the thing. The "poison" you speak of is poisonous, yes. To thistles, and other broadleaf weeds, or if you suck on them or lick them afterwards which is not recommended.

We were asked about EFFECTIVE long term control. A shot of some herbicides, at a rate of about 3/4 of a cup of clopyralid per acre, for example, will actually eradicate the weed for good. Simply put, if you time it correctly, you WILL NOT see another Canada thistle for many years.

Google Canada thistle roots. Look at some images, and it will be more understandable perhaps.

For example:

http://www.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=h...d=0CB0QMygBMAE

[rambler]

Toughest weed we ever had, even Roundup was slow to get rid of them in roundup ready crops, took several years.

You can pull, hoe, and mow then, you will be at that many years. Don't let thrm go to seed, and more will be sprouting as you slowly starve off the massive root they have built up. Can be done on your size operation, but it is relentless weed.....

Milestone, Tordon, Grazeon are some good thistle killers if you go the spray route. A 2 gallon sprayer will seem easy and fit your size operation real well, after a summer of fighting them with a hoe and a mower....

The trick to Canadian thistles is to spray them in fall, after they would normally bloom.

In spring the sap is flowing up from the massive root to the plant, to grow buds and seed. Once they flower, the sap starts flowing the other way, they grow all fall to re supply their root mass flowing nutrients down to the root.

Spray them with anything is the first half of the year, and at best you burn off the green part on the surface, but you won't touch the root, it will just sprout some more.

In fall, then the plant carried the herbicide down into the root and kills it from the bottom up. Then you get a pretty good kill!

Up here in the north, these are super weeds, once established they rove the fields in packs, as the root mass moves and spreads under ground much like strawberries do above ground. Till them up and each bit of root sends out new shoots of its own. Pull a flowering plant out and throw it on the ground, it will live on its sap and finish flowering to seed, as well as growing runners back down into the soil.....

One tough ombré.

Paul

[JoePa]

I've been battling Canadian thistle for years in my garden but I'm winning - the worse thing I did was run a tiller over it - broke up the plants and roots and ended up with more - so what I do now is hit it with roundup whenever some shows it's ugly little head out of the ground - when you pull it out of the ground you almost always leave a small piece of root in the ground and this eventually grows back - I hit my garden and neighboring field a couple times a year with the roundup - good luck

[Moboiku]

Originally Posted by farmerDale

You can not pull a Canada thistle plant out, and get the roots out and be effective is the thing. The "poison" you speak of is poisonous, yes. To thistles, and other broadleaf weeds, or if you suck on them or lick them afterwards which is not recommended.

We were asked about EFFECTIVE long term control. A shot of some herbicides, at a rate of about 3/4 of a cup of clopyralid per acre, for example, will actually eradicate the weed for good. Simply put, if you time it correctly, you WILL NOT see another Canada thistle for many years.

Google Canada thistle roots. Look at some images, and it will be more understandable perhaps.

For example:

http://www.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=h...d=0CB0QMygBMAE

Yep, that is exactly the thistle we had an issue with two years ago. We spent many hours over many days walking a 10-acre pasture, pulling every one we found. Next year we only pulled a half dozen and this year we haven't seen any. They CAN be controlled without the use of poisons. We graze livestock in that pasture - livestock that provides our family with both meat and milk. We do everything we can to avoid using poisons of any kind, since we don't trust the manufacturer's claims of safety - of anything. Not trying to be cynical here but how many times have we been assured something is safe, only to find out decades later that it is the reason this cancer or that [insert health concern here] is suddenly more common?

[haypoint]

Originally Posted by Moboiku

Yep, that is exactly the thistle we had an issue with two years ago. We spent many hours over many days walking a 10-acre pasture, pulling every one we found. Next year we only pulled a half dozen and this year we haven't seen any. They CAN be controlled without the use of poisons. We graze livestock in that pasture - livestock that provides our family with both meat and milk. We do everything we can to avoid using poisons of any kind, since we don't trust the manufacturer's claims of safety - of anything. Not trying to be cynical here but how many times have we been assured something is safe, only to find out decades later that it is the reason this cancer or that [insert health concern here] is suddenly more common?

Results and experiences vary. Perhaps those hours toiling in the summer sun pulling thistle will someday be blamed for causing cancer, who knows?

[farmerDale]

Originally Posted by Moboiku

Yep, that is exactly the thistle we had an issue with two years ago. We spent many hours over many days walking a 10-acre pasture, pulling every one we found. Next year we only pulled a half dozen and this year we haven't seen any. They CAN be controlled without the use of poisons. We graze livestock in that pasture - livestock that provides our family with both meat and milk. We do everything we can to avoid using poisons of any kind, since we don't trust the manufacturer's claims of safety - of anything. Not trying to be cynical here but how many times have we been assured something is safe, only to find out decades later that it is the reason this cancer or that [insert health concern here] is suddenly more common?

Either we are talking about a different weed, or you got EXCEPTIONALLY LUCKY somehow, because Canada thistle does not respond to pulling out once like you state, it simply doesn't. If it did, we farmers would have much better success, especially in the years of rod weeders, which plucked them out of the ground. But they came back, year after year, and eradication was impossible.

I am glad for you, that you got your weeds and by doing it your way.

Just remember though, vinegar is a poison, water is a poison. It is the dose, not the simple fact it is a "chemical".

Again, glad you got your weeds, I am not trying to argue at all. Different strokes for different folks. And that's a good thing.